Crunk: Hip-Hop's Got a New Accent

By Desa Philadelphia

Southern musicians aren't used to being on the tail end of any genre. After all, the South is where jazz and blues were invented. Where Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the devil so he could play the licks that would become rock 'n' roll. Where Ray Charles realized that gospel sounded just as good outside of church. So the past 25 years must have been painful for Southern rappers, having to stand by while New York City and Los Angeles rhymers got all the respect and most of the record sales.

Not anymore. The South is finally where hip-hop's at. These days, the biggest acts on Billboard's urban charts and on MTV are Southerners like the Ying Yang Twins, Ludacris, Mike Jones and, of course, Atlanta duo Outkast, which last year became the first hip-hop act to win a Grammy for Album of the Year. The cutting edge of Southern music: a danceable, rapid-fire, bass-heavy rap (frequently blended with R&B) called crunk, fine-tuned and marketed by loud, gold-toothed former DJ Lil Jon and popularized partly through his massive and spectacularly vulgar hit Get Low. His music--along with the crunk (Southern shorthand for "cranked up," as in increased volume; it also alludes to getting crazy drunk) label--has made its way through every city block to the hip-hop mainstream.

Just how Southern has the urban-music scene become? Four of the 10 rap artists who got the most airplay last year were from the South. These days, the rappers from the lower states have clothing lines, accessories, even branded beverages (Lil Jon's energy drink is called Crunk Juice), not to mention alliances with the biggest pop artists. The Ying Yang Twins have collaborated with Britney Spears, and Destiny's Child commissioned Atlanta rapper T.I. on a recent single. Lil Jon has produced big crunk hits for Atlantans Usher (Yeah!) and Ciara (Goodies).

No self-respecting rap neighborhood would be without its mogul. The South has New Orleans' Master P., who only 12 years ago was selling discs out of the back of his car. Today he is one of the most successful independent rappers in the business--the self-proclaimed "ghetto Bill Gates"--with a clothing line, a movie-production company, an acting career in film and on TV (he plays dad to his real-life son on Nickelodeon's Romeo) and 11 albums, the latest of which, Ghetto Bill: The Best Hustler in the Game, came out last week. His theory is that people are attracted to the sort of levity Southern rappers provide. "It's like Southern hospitality. People can party together. When you bring a Southern artist to your town, it's not about Crips or Bloods," he says. "We're able to get money from everybody."

As for crunk, it has become the hottest brand in rap. And quite apart from the business, its artists have a voice. They "created something that doesn't sound like [it was made by] a guy from New York or somebody from L.A. It's specific to the South," says U.S.C. professor Todd Boyd, author of The New H.N.I.C: The Death of Civil Rights and the Reign of Hip Hop. "A big part of hip-hop is about representing, and they want to rep their culture." The Sundance hit Hustle & Flow, about a Memphis, Tenn., pimp who wants to be a rapper, will introduce the sound to an even wider audience and ought to boost collaborators like Memphians Al Kapone and Three 6 Mafia, not to mention Ludacris, who has a pivotal role as a rapper from the streets made good known as Skinny Black. Performers on the sound track--including T.I., Mike Jones (from Houston) and Juvenile (from New Orleans)--will be playing Hustle & Flow concerts in Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago and New Orleans this summer. Hustle, says co-producer John Singleton proudly, is "the first crunk movie."

The South is still rising. MTV has ordered a reality show called Crunkville. Meanwhile, competition for Lil Jon and company is emerging out of Houston, via a hip-hop twist called screw, a smoother, less frenetic rap that slow-danced its way out of Texas last year when Lil' Flip's Sunshine became a Top 10 pop hit.

Of course, Southern rap didn't just crop up overnight. America got a taste of what the down-home base could deliver in 1989, when Miami's Luther Campbell and his 2 Live Crew rampaged with the hit Me So Horny. But that era's strip-club-and-gospel sensibility was a little too jarring for mainstream tastes, and Campbell ended up retreating to Florida. That didn't daunt innovators like Speech of Arrested Development, Missy Elliott and the Neptunes--all from the South.

The difference now is that Southerners are finally dominating the only American music that didn't originate in their backyard. And that's a reason to get crunk. By Desa Philadelphia